Couples stump docs with ‘kids of choice’

The Jyoti Punj Hospital in Patna, which procures sperms from other cities. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

In a run to have the “perfect” kid, doctors across the city are getting bizarre queries from couples visiting sperm banks of the hospitals.

Ranging from caste or complexion to weird ones like if the sperm donor was a good student, the medicos are having a tough time explaining the impossibilities of their desires.

The doctors associated with sperm banks said the couples want to be totally satisfied with the donor’s various aspects before opting for the procedure. The city has a handful of sperm banks and there are some hospitals that bring sperms from other cities.

The procedure involves placing fresh sperms in the woman’s uterus through catheter during ovulation. The procedure is used for couples with unexplained infertility, minimal male factor infertility and women with cervical mucus problem. Dr Sourav Kumar, director of Frozen Cell Infertility Research Centre, a sperm bank in Patna City, said: “Some married couples enquire about the caste of the sperm donor like whether he belongs to their caste or not. Sometimes they ask if the donor is a Brahman or a Kayastha. We get these kinds of questions but very few couples ask questions related to caste. Only 5 per cent of them do,” said Sourav. He added: “Many couples want to know about the complexion and height of the donor. They also ask about the height of the donor, which can tell them from our records. However, questions like whether the donor has been good in studies or not is beyond us to answer. How can we know if the man has been academically good or not? Any information on the donors is provided by them only.”

Dr Himanshu Roy, an infertility expert came up with another queer question he gets from married couples — whether the sperm donor is sanskari (cultured) or not.“How can we say that a particular sperm donor is cultured or not? It is impossible to comment on this because we have not put the donor concerned under scanner for 24 hours.” said Roy.

A resident of Kankerbagh, who has undergone intrauterine insemination at a hospital, said there was nothing wrong if couples wanted to know about the various aspects of the donor, including his caste, complexion and others. “If we are getting a chance to choose the best donor, what’s bad in it? After all, we are paying for the procedure and so it’s our right to get assured about the sperm donor,” said Srivastava.